Hamas’ attack on Israel

Posted on October 26, 2023 by obligingworldviewer

The last day of the Jewish high holidays should be a nice one, but it became a day of horror. Israelis all over the south of Israel and as far north as the contested city of Jerusalem were woken early in the morning of October 7, by air raid sirens and the thud of missiles. Hamas was infiltrating Israeli territory on the ground and with ultralight aircraft while bombing Israeli settlements.

It is known that Hamas likes to work with surprise attacks. Their time and place of their choosing has this time caught both Israelis and Palestinians completely by surprise.

On October 8, the Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, said 5,000 had been fired to Israel, but an Israeli military spokesperson said 2,500 had been fired.

Gunmen opened fire on passers-by in the town of Sderot, in southern Israel, and Hamas fighters went into houses to shoot anyone they saw. The Hamas fighters seized control of the police station of Sderot, and held several people hostage.

7 Ukrainians killed in Hamas attack on Israel. Nine more Ukrainians were injured, and nine others are still considered missing. On October 12, around 200 Ukrainians have reportedly requested to be evacuated from the Gaza Strip. The Foreign Ministry and embassies in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan were conducting active diplomatic efforts to evacuate Ukrainian citizens as soon as possible, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko said.

There is a large Ukrainian community in Israel, estimated by the Foreign Ministry as being around 500,000, most of whom left Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nikolenko said earlier that there were at the time of the attack, 14,000 Ukrainian citizens listed on the consular register of Ukraine’s embassy in Israel.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned the attack by Hamas and urged but also noticed the strong measures of Israel

“all diplomatic efforts to avoid a wider conflagration”, UN spokesperson Steéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the US about normalising relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint.

What we could expect from a right-wing Israeli government that created an apartheid state over the years, is that Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to offer a unity government after declaring a state of war. The move would bring Netanyahu and the centrist party Yesh Atid leader, Yair Lapid, together during the national emergency. Netanyahu made the offer during a meeting with Lapid, the Israeli journalist, television personality, and politician who served briefly as prime minister (July–December 2022), and the National Unity party leader, Benny Gantz, a well-known general of the Israel Defense Forces.

The scale and deadly nature of the Saturday October 7, attack has been compared to the Yom Kippur war, which took place 50 years ago that week, when a joint surprise offensive was launched by Syrian forces in the Golan and Egyptian forces in the Sinai peninsula.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the attack to 9/11 and has said online that the country was

“embarking on a long and difficult war”.

Egypt was in talks with Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a bid to defuse Palestinian-Israeli tensions.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told US secretary of state Antony Blinken that “injustice” towards Palestinians is driving the conflict with Israel to an “explosion”, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The agency also reported Abbas received a phone call from his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in which Abbas

“emphasised that the current escalation in the region is a result of the political impasse”

and a

“denial of the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to self-determination”.

One can say that Israel has the right to defend itself, but this might not mean that it can do whatever it wants, like it has been doing the last few weeks, killing innocent civilians.